A known method for suppressing the occurrence of burrs when a gear processing is operated by cutting a work using a cutter with a skiving technology is disclosed in JP2012-143821A (hereinafter referred to as Patent reference 1). According to Patent reference 1, a technology for applying a brittleness to a processing surface of the work by performing a surface hardening treatment on the processing surface of the work so that cutting chips generated by cutting the work by the cutter tend to be readily removed from the work is disclosed.
Another known technology is disclosed in JP2012-171020A (hereinafter referred to as Patent reference 2). According to Patent reference 2, the technology for differentiating at least one of cutting conditions, a feed rate of a cutter for cutting a work, a cutting amount to the work and a relative rotation position of the cutter and the work, between a downstream end surface of the work and other areas than the downstream end surface of the work in a feeding direction of the cutter is disclosed.
According to a second embodiment of Patent reference 2, after the cutter cutting the work reaches the bottom surface of the work, the cutter operates a reciprocating movement along the feeding direction at a small area. Burrs are removed by the cutter coming in contact with the work.
According to Patent reference 1 and Patent reference 2, when the cutting process is operated on the work using the cutter with the skiving technology, the burrs are formed at an end portion of a tooth groove of the work. The burrs generated can be removed by the technologies disclosed in Patent reference 1 and Patent reference 2.
However, according to the technology disclosed in Patent reference 1, an extra process required for surface treatment of the work is a disadvantage in terms of a manufacturing cost. According to Patent reference 2, the technology does not prevent the burrs from being formed in the first place. Thus, the burrs may still be remained on the work.
Further, a chamfering process may be operated on an end surface of a work to remove burrs formed on the work after a cutting process. However, an extra process other than the cutting process to form a gear is required.
A need thus exists for a method for processing a gear and a cutter for processing a gear which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.